This story is definitely not isolated. It seems in that part of the world, the community oftentimes doesn't want to deal with the fact of what one of their men has done. So all the blame is put on the female victim. If a little girl gets raped, it must be her fault. Sometimes they stone the poor girl to death.

In that culture it's considered shameful to have a woman who was raped or had a scandalous sexual relationship in the family, so it's considered an "honor killing" when they remove that shame from the family by killing her:http://www.nation.co.ke/news/world/Hono ... index.html

So, in light of all this, ask yourself, if you were a woman in this part of the world and got raped, how likely would it be you'd decide to report it?

The police or village elders might not even record the rape in the crime statistics.

The official statistics probably do not truly reflect the real rape rates in this region of the world.

Lastly, don't forget that the entire culture in some of these societies is built around protecting women, covering up their entire bodies, women kept segregated from men who are not related to them, women often only going out into public when accompanied by male family members to protect them. Of course all those built-in cultural protections don't exist in other places like Europe.

Another example of a rape being not recorded and ignored by authorities, despite the woman's pleading:

Iran: Forced to marry at age 15, raped, killed her husband and executed

Responding to the horrific news that 24-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Zeinab Sekaanvand was executed early this morning in Urumieh central prison, West Azerbaijan province, Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:"The execution of Zeinab Sekaanvand is a sickening demonstration of the Iranian authorities' disregard for the principles of juvenile justice and international human rights law. Zeinab was just 17 years old at the time of her arrest. Her execution is profoundly unjust and shows the Iranian authorities contempt for the right of children to life. The fact that her death sentence followed a grossly unfair trial makes her execution even more outrageous."

Zeinab Sekaanvand said that, soon after she was married at 15, she sought help many times from the authorities about her violent husband and alleged that her brother-in-law had raped her repeatedly. Instead of investigating these allegations, however, the authorities consistently ignored her and failed to provide her with any support as a victim of domestic and sexual violence.After the murder of her husband, Zeinab Sekaanvand said she was interrogated under torture by male police officers without a lawyer present. During her final trial session, where she was allowed a lawyer for the first time, she retracted her earlier "confession" that she had murdered her husband, saying that she had been coerced to make it. Despite this, the judge refused to order a further investigation and instead sentenced her to death.​

So let me get this straight. She was FORCED into marriage against her will. She was abused by her husband. She was raped multiple times by his brother, with her husband not seeming to care. She begged the authorities for help and they refused to do anything. She finally had enough and killed her "husband".Even though there wasn't any clear proof that she was the one who killed him, they tortured her into making a confession, and now they have finally executed her after keeping her in prison for 5 years. She was forced into marriage at age 15 and she was 17 when the man she had been married to was found dead.

Question ladies: What would YOU have done if you had found yourself in that situation?

At the age of only 11 she was arrested, jailed, and whipped 25 times, because a taxi driver claimed she had sexual relations with him. She says she didn't. When she was 13 she was married off to an older man. She wasn't given a choice. He raped her over and over, constantly beat her, and at one time or another broke almost every major bone in her body. At the age of 15 she begged a judge to grant a divorce but the judge wouldn't help her.

The definition of "Rape" is used differently in the Middle East than it is in the Western World for various reasons.

The Middle East is dominated by Islam and its anti feminist values. The Middle East is much less feminist than the west, partially because of Islamic influence and values. The Middle East does not report rape like how western nations do because many men in the Middle East view women as underclass sexual slaves.

In alternative terms, the Middle East has a very much higher rape rate than the West. It is just that Middle Eastern governments do not report many of the rape cases.

Rancid wrote:I'd imagine rape is one of the most under reported crimes across the world.

Rape used to be under reported in the United States due to shame and fear. However, today in the USA, women have been known to report previous consensual affairs as rape after the relationship soured, or as a cover for promiscuous sexual behavior, or to get a payoff.